The increasing
elasticity of Western musical thought spurring the incorporation of world
music elements into once static forms has resulted in some truly imaginative
releases in recent times. But it’s one thing to integrate distant
musical ideas and another to actually immerse oneself in the spirit, culture
and everyday lives of the people whose influence is sought. British composer
and guitarist Martin Cradick took the latter approach when first planting
the seeds for what became Baka Beyond, a renowned act known for merging
the music and ideals of Cameroon’s Baka Forest People with other
West African and Western sounds.

"I don't believe new ideas or art forms appear out of nowhere, but
always through the marriage of previously established ideas that fuse
and create a new one," said Cradick, 39, of the philosophies behind
Baka Beyond’s approach. "This can be seen in many areas from
the rise of Renaissance art when the Christian world met the Muslim world,
to the birth of blues where African and European music met. In traveling
around the world, playing music and jamming with people of very different
musical traditions, I try to find where the similarities are. Once you
find them, you have a starting point to build from. If you dogmatically
stick to your own tradition and refuse to bend at all then it becomes
impossible to find a fusion. This is true in life as well."

Baka Beyond’s music is steeped in joy and celebration. The band’s
line-up includes four musicians from West Africa and four from Europe.
Together, they explore the realm of acoustic dance music full of addictive
melodies and rhythms built around influences from the Baka Pygmies. The
uplifting sound is captured in all its splendor on the group’s fourth
and most recent studio release Sogo.

Like previous Baka Beyond albums, Sogo offers reflections of Cradick’s
ongoing association with the Baka. The roots of that relationship reside
in his initial desire to learn about the Baka first hand after being introduced
to their life’s philosophies via the media. He found himself so
enamored by their outlook that he and his wife, Baka Beyond vocalist Su
Hart, chose to pack a tent, tape recorder, camera, guitar and mandolin
and set off to spend six weeks living with them and absorbing their values
and beliefs.

"We first saw them on a Channel 4 documentary by Phil Agland,"
said Cradick. "The way music was so incorporated into everyday life
and the way it was approached with such fun and irreverence struck a chord
with me. At first it was a dream to go and visit them, but a series of
coincidences fell into place so that in December 1990 we set off to Cameroon,
spending New Year’s Eve in Moscow airport to witness the end of
the USSR and arrived in Cameroon in 1991."

Although Cradick knew the trip would be transforming, he couldn’t
have predicted how influential the Baka’s musical perspective would
be on him.

"Their music is at once simple and incredibly complex," he
explained. "It is a backdrop to their whole life. It is very common
to hear someone playing an instrument or singing on their own. The other
everyday sounds and conversations fall into the rhythm of that music until
the whole camp is singing and playing along. It isn't possible to see
when the conversations stop and the music starts.

"For the Baka, music is used both for spiritual things and general
enjoyment. The same songs can be used for both aspects depending on the
circumstances. Much of their music, particularly the polyphonic singing,
is composed of many relatively simple parts that create a much more complex
whole. The individual parts on their own are meaningless. As a result,
the music is used to hold the group together and to heal differences.
We witnessed several occasions when there had been a big argument, but
the people later played music together and completely healed any rifts
through the togetherness achieved in their music-making.

"The Baka and other Pygmy groups are respected throughout Africa
for their music. This starts from the moment they take part in any social
interaction even as babies. From the moment they enter the forest world,
every sound they hear is of importance to their life. In the forest you
can't see far, so sound is how you know what is coming, where you are,
where your food is and where danger is. As a result, all the Baka learn
to listen. In our world, there are many sounds that are irrelevant to
our lives, especially in an industrialized country. We therefore learn
from an early age to filter out irrelevant sounds. In other words, we
learn to not hear. I believe this is why the Baka are such phenomenal
musicians. Ninety percent of music is the ability to listen sensitively.
For the Baka, that ability is their survival."

Cradick’s trip took place when he was still one half of the now-defunct
Outback, an acclaimed worldbeat act that combined Cradick’s deft
acoustic guitar skills with Graham Wiggins’ ebullient didgeridoo
approach. Prior to visiting Cameroon, Cradick had already recorded a piece
with Outback called "Baka," an upbeat tribute to the people
he soon found himself inextricably linked to.

"When we first went to visit, the idea of an album didn't exist,"
he said. "But I did have the idea of recording a version of "Baka"
with them and they were very happy to assist. I thought we could release
it as a single—Outback with the Baka—to raise money and awareness
for them. I felt the only thing you can really export without ecological
ramifications is culture. In the end this didn't happen, but Spirit of
the Forest and Heart of the Forest did, so we were able to set up a charity
to handle the money earned and to make sure they got their fair due from
the sales."

Spirit
of the Forest and Heart of the Forest represent two sides of how Cradick’s
initial encounter with the Baka affected him from a musical standpoint.
He wanted to ensure the world had a chance to hear the Baka’s music
in all its naked, unadorned beauty. From that desire emerged Heart of
the Forest, a release solely credited to the Baka Forest People. The disc
offered up a fascinating and engaging collection of field recordings representing
the vocal, string and percussion traditions at the core of the Baka’s
music. In contrast, Spirit of the Forest, the first Baka Beyond release,
found Cradick reworking the Baka source material by merging it with Northern
European influences.

"Spirit of the Forest was really an experiment. It was recorded
in my bedroom studio. While I was recording it, I had no real thoughts
about whether it would be released or how it would be marketed,"
said Cradick. "I had a load of recordings made in the Cameroon rainforest
of myself and various Baka musicians sitting around playing music. I listened
to the guitar lines and rhythms being played and re-recorded them at home,
then worked out vocal melody lines that had been improvised at the time
and recorded them with Su. Finally, I improvised mandolin over these backings
and asked my old friend Paddy [Le Mercier] to improvise some violin."

Spirit of the Forest and Heart of the Forest were released simultaneously
on Joe Boyd’s Hannibal label in October 1993. But just prior to
the albums becoming available, Cradick had yet to formally consider building
a performing unit around the name Baka Beyond.

"At this stage, Baka Beyond as a band didn't exist," said Cradick.
"Meanwhile, Outback's old agent had booked a concert at a festival
in the U.K., but had forgotten to mention that Outback had split up. He
also forgot to tell us that we had a gig. About two weeks before this
concert he suggested that I do it as Baka Beyond. Liking a challenge,
I agreed and found some musicians who could perform the songs and we had
a surprisingly successful concert considering the short notice. So, Baka
Beyond, the band, came into existence in August 1993."

A series of well-received live performances followed and the two albums
were met by great acclaim. Baka Beyond’s success in both arenas
played a role in the direction of The Meeting Pool, the 1995 follow-up
album that balanced Cradick’s initial vision with more contemporary
elements.

"The Meeting Pool was a mixture of the band's influence and the
original concepts behind Spirit of the Forest," said Cradick. "We
were in a strange position in that Spirit was selling very well in the
States—far better than in the U.K.—and meanwhile the band
was evolving in its own direction. Tom Green's unique keyboard style helped
the band fit into the fringes of the English dance scene in such clubs
as Whirligig. In making a new album, I didn't want to completely change
tack as far as our audience in America was concerned, but also wanted
to provide some creative space for the musicians with whom I was working
with live at the time. So, The Meeting Pool represents where the ancient
meets modern and the acoustic meets electronic."

Further
U.K. and European tours followed the release of The Meeting Pool and the
group developed a loyal following—something captured on the Live
and Pedal-Powered release recorded with a rig deriving electricity from
The Amazing Rinky Dink bicycle-powered sound system. But at the end of
1996, vocalist Kate Budd departed to look after her children. Further,
Cradick’s own son Milo was now a toddler and demanding more attention.
These factors contributed to putting further touring on the back burner
and set the stage for the approach represented on the group’s next
release, 1996’s Journey Between.

"As touring wasn't on the agenda, Journey Between was very much
a studio album incorporating performances by many musicians which I recorded
both in Africa and at our new studio in Bath that was being built while
the recording was going on," said Cradick. The disc’s arrangements
of Celtic and Senegalese pieces are largely influenced by Cradick’s
Cornish roots and Le Mercier’s Breton background—all bound
together by what Cradick describes as "the spirit of the Baka."

"When the Baka play their rhythms and dance, they believe that particular
spirits take over the dancers and musicians," he explained. "On
one hand, they know that the dancer is someone dressed up, but that doesn't
contradict the idea that it is a real spirit dancing. I can only relate
to this in the context of my own experiences. When playing music in a
live situation—when you feel it getting really good—it is
as if you become separated from the music. The music is being played through
you, not by you and the audience is just as much part of that process
as you are. I see this as the same process as the Baka ritual dances.
The music has the ability to manifest this spirit which everyone is part
of and is part of everyone. Different types of music create different
spirits. I don’t mean that they manifest a physical entity, but
rather an atmosphere or mood."

After Journey Between, Baka Beyond changed direction to focus on the
concert trail again. It resulted in the group’s most solid line-up
to date and a new emphasis for its next recording.

"In order to promote Journey Between, I invited Lakh Niasse, a Senegalese
drummer I met in Ziguinchor, the capital of Senegal; Nii Tagoe, an excellent
percussionist and dancer from Ghana who is now a resident of London; and
Ayodele Scott, a percussionist from Sierra Leone who lives in Devon, to
join the band. At last we had a truly West African rhythm section to complement
the Celtic roots of Paddy, Su and myself. This made the live show much
stronger and created a genuine cross-cultural blend with each musician
bringing something of their own musical experiences united within the
context of songs based around the music and basic rhythms of the Baka.

"Sogo, our latest release, was an attempt to capture this new live
energy that we had created in new songs and a new album. Previous Baka
Beyond albums had been more conceptual with the main aim of creating certain
moods, without any thought as to how it may be produced live. Sogo is
the first Baka Beyond album that sounds pretty much as we do as a live
band—a few overdubs here and there excepted. I still see live performance
and producing an album as two totally different things, although they
can sometimes coincide."

The
Baka rhythms embraced by the group differ from traditional Western notions
of rhythm. In fact, for the Baka, both rhythm and melody are group-focused
activities that largely adhere to a "greater than the sum of its
parts" philosophy. "The music of the Baka is characterized by
complex interactions of simpler parts," said Cradick. "The melodies
heard in the singing are a combination of different people’s parts.
This is also true of percussion parts where simple rhythms syncopate and
create more complex rhythms. This means that the rhythmic patterns have
to be quite strict and there isn’t room for participants to drift
off into their own interpretation—at least at a basic level.

"When you get a group of people playing music in this way, the spirit
created is very different from that when everyone is playing in a more
competitive way. However, if the music is entirely like that then it becomes
trance-like and is maybe not so interesting in a performance situation.
The egos are important, but need to be restrained to a certain extent
so that a group ego can emerge. The individual egos can then pop up occasionally,
but if one person is too dominant it kills the group spirit."

The Baka are fairly compensated for their contributions to Baka Beyond’s
music via the One Heart charitable organization. Helmed by Cradick and
Hart, its goal is to help the Baka maintain their forest and lifestyle
in a rapidly-changing world.

"Initially, all money earned by the Baka such as publishing for
all songs on Heart of the Forest and some songs on Spirit of the Forest—plus
their share of sales royalties for all songs where recordings or samples
of their music is used—was put into a building society until the
best thing to do with it was decided," said Cradick. "Since
the first visit, we have returned three times and have built up a picture
of their wishes and needs. Over the last few years, we have been building
up contacts with people both local to the Baka and development experts
to make sure that the money is spent in the best way possible, and in
the way the Baka wish."

Despite Cradick’s best intentions, there have been roadblocks to
delivering the funds.

"The Cameroonian authorities found out about our charity and tried
to get hold of the money to administer it themselves," said Cradick.
"Their proposal included spending most of the money on highly dubious
consultancy fees. As yet, we have not received a reply to our letter of
several months ago questioning certain details."

Cradick recently returned to Cameroon to hold detailed talks with the
Baka in order to begin more concrete development projects. The trip also
found him assisting in the delivery of tools and clothing the Baka have
requested in order to build a palm oil plantation. Cradick hopes he can
continue encouraging One Heart’s funds to go towards similarly positive
ventures—particularly in light of some of the perilous impacts money
can have on a socio-economic system previously devoid of its influence.

"The Baka live in a cash-free economy," said Cradick. "When
any of them do have money, it is usually spent on alcohol as this can
be shared out easily and the local villagers can get the money off them.
It is quite a sensitive issue as the money is theirs, but the social implications
of suddenly giving them large amounts of cash are quite severe.

"It should be pointed out that although the Baka we stayed with
are living from hunter-gathering in the forest, there are changes happening
there with encroachment on their land, expansion of towns etcetera, so
that their life is changing. We are aiming to help them cope with this
change and to preserve as much of the forest as possible. It would be
terrible to see the same thing happen to them as has happened to the Pygmies
of the Great Lakes region where they have become the lowest of the low
city beggars."

Cradick also has great hopes for the future of the Baka’s music.

"When we returned the second time with copies of Heart of the Forest
and Spirit of the Forest, the Baka were much more interested in Spirit
than Heart," said Cradick. "This disappointed me a bit because
I wanted them to realize the power and value of their traditional music.
Also, they didn't recognize it as their music, but really liked it. The
third time we returned, we noticed how many more of them—the younger
men particularly—could play the guitar. They were very keen to create
a clearing in the forest solely for playing music. What pleased me was
that this interest in developing their guitar-based music didn't seem
to have affected their enjoyment of the traditional stuff that they continued
to play as well."

Apart from Baka Beyond and One Heart activities, Cradick runs March Hare
Music, an Internet-based independent label located at www.baka.co.uk/shop
devoted to releasing live Baka Beyond recordings, his side projects and
those of his musical associates.

"I know many musicians who have some great recordings that will
never be heard by anyone else since they sit on a shelf and stay there
because they aren't commercial enough to interest A&R men," said
Cradick. "The Internet could change this as it is possible to have
a very specialized market spread across the world, whereas previously
you needed a certain concentration of interest to make it viable to produce
records to sell."

Beyond leveraging the Internet, Cradick has some time-tested advice for
creative musicians trying to get their music out to a broader audience.

"Make the music that is in your heart, but if you want to make a
living from it then find that part of it that is also relevant to other
people," he said. "The business side is all about getting people
to hear your music, so be creative. There is more than one way to do this.
For instance, when Outback started, we were selling cassettes while busking
and making a reasonable living doing so. If we had accepted a normal record
deal when Joe Boyd first saw us, we would have lost our means of making
a living. We therefore managed to negotiate a deal that suited both parties
where we didn't get an advance as such, but were able to get cassettes
and CDs at cost price providing that we sold them direct and not to retail
outlets. Ultimately, to carry on takes hard work, dogged determination
and a sense of humor."

Illustrate the evolution of Baka Beyond from the first CD to
Sogo.

M.C
:"Spirit of the Forest was really an experiment. It was recorded
in my bedroom studio. While I was recording it, I had no real thoughts
about whether it would be released or how it would be marketed. I had
a load of recordings made in the Cameroon rainforest of myself and various
Baka musicians sitting around playing music. I listened to the guitar
lines and rhythms being played and re-recorded them at home, then worked
out vocal melody lines that had been improvised at the time and recorded
them with Su. Finally, I improvised mandolin over these backings and asked
my old friend Paddy [Le Mercier] to improvise some violin."

At this stage, Baka Beyond as a band didn't exist. Meanwhile, Outback's
old agent had booked a concert at a festival in the U.K., but had forgotten
to mention that Outback had split up. He also forgot to tell us that we
had a gig. About two weeks before this concert he suggested that I do
it as Baka Beyond. Liking a challenge, I agreed and found some musicians
who could perform the songs and we had a surprisingly successful concert
considering the short notice. So, Baka Beyond, the band, came into existence
in August 1993.

The next album, The Meeting Pool was a mixture of the band's influence
and the original concepts behind Spirit of the Forest. We were in a strange
position in that Spirit was selling very well in the States—far
better than in the U.K.—and meanwhile the band was evolving in its
own direction. Tom Green's unique keyboard style helped the band fit into
the fringes of the English dance scene in such clubs as Whirligig. In
making a new album, I didn't want to completely change tack as far as
our audience in America was concerned, but also wanted to provide some
creative space for the musicians with whom I was working with live at
the time. So, The Meeting Pool [1995] represents where the ancient meets
modern and the acoustic meets electronic.

After the release of The Meeting Pool, the band toured in the U.K. and
Europe and built up a loyal following particularly on the U.K. festival
circuit. A taste of what this period sounded like live can be heard on
Live and Pedal-Powered recorded with the amazing Rinky Dink bicycle-powered
sound system. By the end of 1996, Kate Budd had to give up touring due
to having to look after her children every weekend. And my son Milo was
now a toddler and demanding more attention and we moved house. All these
factors made touring impossible, so I set down to record Journey Between.

As touring wasn't on the agenda, Journey Between was very much a studio
album incorporating performances by many musicians which I recorded both
in Africa and at our new studio in Bath that was being built while the
recording was going on. In order to promote Journey Between, I invited
Lakh Niasse, a Senegalese drummer I met in Ziguinchor, the capital of
Senegal; Nii Tagoe, an excellent percussionist and dancer from Ghana who
is now a resident of London; and Ayodele Scott, a percussionist from Sierra
Leone who lives in Devon, to join the band. At last we had a truly West
African rhythm section to complement the Celtic roots of Paddy, Su and
myself. This made the live show much stronger and created a genuine cross-cultural
blend with each musician bringing something of their own musical experiences
united within the context of songs based around the music and basic rhythms
of the Baka.

Sogo,
our latest release, was an attempt to capture this new live energy that
we had created in new songs and a new album. Previous Baka Beyond albums
had been more conceptual with the main aim of creating certain moods,
without any thought as to how it may be produced live. Sogo is the first
Baka Beyond album that sounds pretty much as we do as a live band—a
few overdubs here and there excepted. I still see live performance and
producing an album as two totally different things, although they can
sometimes coincide.

Since Sogo’s release, the band continues to evolve. Unfortunately,
because Lakh stayed too long the previous time he was in the U.K., he
was refused a visa and so a week before we were due to start rehearsals
for the tour to coincide with the release we had to find a drummer. Luckily
an excellent drummer, Tim Robinson, was free for the first half of the
tour. But unfortunately he was already booked up—by Stackridge of
all people—for the second half. Then a Senegalese friend, Seckou
Keita, who I knew as a brilliant kora player and percussionist, told me
he also played the drum kit. He was free for most of our bookings so I
had no hesitation in recruiting his services. The future possibilities
with the combined talents of the current line-up are huge."

Compare the vision of the current band to the ensemble behind
Spirit of the Forest.

M.C: "The current band is a truly multicultural group using basic
Baka rhythms to unite all the different styles that they bring to the
band. Spirit was an experiment. I had no idea at the start of the project
what would come out at the end. It was more a direct collaboration between
the Baka's music and my own interpretations and inspirations from their
music. The current band has many more diverse influences, but they are
still held within the framework of the spirit of the Baka's music.

Take me through the creation of a piece on Sogo to illustrate
how a Baka Beyond piece can come about.

M.C: "I always start with the rhythm first and work from there.
When we started recording Sogo the band was pretty tight, but all the
songs we were playing had all been recorded before on the previous albums.
So, we recorded the whole set we had been doing live. I then isolated
the drum and percussion parts and used them as backings for new songs.
Take the track "Bilabo" as an example. The original backing
was for "Do Good", a song we perform regularly live, but for
some reason has never made it onto a studio album. The drum and percussion
parts were cooking, so I transferred them into Pro-tools—a computer
multi-track recording program where I could edit them easily. Then I gave
a tape of the rhythm to Su who worked out a vocal part. I then decided
the basic structure of the song, where the vocal parts, instrumentals
etcetera should go and edited the rhythm track to fit the changes. I wrote
a guitar riff to complement the vocals and recorded that over the rhythm
track. Guide vocals were recorded and bass and violin added. Finally,
the vocal parts were all recorded. For me, the best thing about digital
recording is that you can afford to make mistakes.

This means that you can be very free when, for example recording a solo
and you can then take risks and let the muse take you, knowing that any
mistakes can be edited out and any little bits of brilliance can be put
into an appropriate place in the song. Once you start getting involved
in multi-tracking you have removed yourself from live music. You have
to then create the illusion that everyone is playing at the same time.
If that is achieved by sampling, looping, or any other means, as far as
I am concerned there are no rules. If you want it live then go to a concert
or buy one of our live CDs."

M.C: "I
don't believe new ideas or art forms appear out of nowhere, but always
through the marriage of previously established ideas that fuse and create
a new one. This can be seen in many areas from the rise of Renaissance
art when the Christian world met the Muslim world, to the birth of blues
where African and European music met. In traveling around the world, playing
music and jamming with people of very different musical traditions, I
try to find where the similarities are. Once you find them, you have a
starting point to build from. If you dogmatically stick to your own tradition
and refuse to bend at all then it becomes impossible to find a fusion.
This is true in life as well."

Is Baka Beyond a band in a traditional sense? One gets the idea
that it's largely focused on your vision.

M.C: "Over its history Baka Beyond has been based on my vision,
so it isn't a band in the same way Outback was. However it is now a band
of musicians held together by mutual respect with myself as the leader.
It needs a single vision to hold together such a large number of talented
people and that's my job."

Describe your bandleading approach.

M.C: "I see it like a football team. Each musician has a role in
the team. If the goalkeeper suddenly starts behaving like the center forward
then it wouldn't work. If everyone has to be told at all times what to
do, it wouldn't work either. I have to provide a framework in which everyone
can flourish. I wouldn't say I always achieve it, but that's the aim.
Baka Beyond's music is different in that the Baka's approach to music
is always an underlying ideal. Their music isn't at all based on egos.
If any one ego is too strong it can spoil the spirit inherent in the music,
so I do sometimes have to keep band members' egos in check, but also have
to give them enough room so that they don't feel restricted. A delicate
balance, but with eight musicians an important one."

You mentioned that Baka Beyond is an attempt to create music
free of ego. It's a difficult concept for the Western mind to comprehend.
We're very used to the idea of ego being a prerequisite for great art.

M.C: "The music of the Baka is characterized by complex interactions
of simpler parts. The melodies heard in the singing are a combination
of different people’s parts. This is also true of percussion parts
where simple rhythms syncopate and create more complex rhythms. This means
that the rhythmic patterns have to be quite strict and there isn’t
room for participants to drift off into their own interpretation—at
least at a basic level. It was certainly very hard to find people in U.K.
who understood this concept, which is why the band is so much stronger
now that it has a West African rhythm section.

When you get a group of people playing music in this way, the spirit
created is very different from that when everyone is playing in a more
competitive way. However, if the music is entirely like that then it becomes
trance-like and is maybe not so interesting in a performance situation.
The egos are important, but need to be restrained to a certain extent
so that a group ego can emerge. The individual egos can then pop up occasionally,
but if one person is too dominant it kills the group spirit. Let me elaborate
on my use of the word "spirit.

When
the Baka play their rhythms and dance, they believe that particular spirits
take over the dancers and musicians. On one hand, they know that the dancer
is someone dressed up, but that doesn't contradict the idea that it is
a real spirit dancing. I can only relate to this in the context of my
own experiences. When playing music in a live situation—when you
feel it getting really good—it is as if you become separated from
the music. The music is being played through you, not by you and the audience
is just as much part of that process as you are. I see this as the same
process as the Baka ritual dances. The music has the ability to manifest
this spirit which everyone is part of and is part of everyone. Different
types of music create different spirits. I don’t mean that they
manifest a physical entity, but rather an atmosphere or mood. This is
the problem with the inadequacies of our language to express these things.

When living with the Baka, these type of things become normal. I think
that the crazy people who complain about heavy metal music being satanic
have a point. Where I disagree with them is that I do not see it as anything
to be frightened of."

What's your perspective on spirituality? And how has the Baka's
take affected it?

M.C: "Spirituality is hard to talk about since the language is so
open to misinterpretation. I don't believe in a God who sits in the clouds
judging people, yet I do believe that we are all connected on a spiritual
level. The Christian idea that "God is Love" appeals to me and
the idea that love can transcend the laws of cause and effect to cause
miracles. Living in the forest with the Baka has meant that I have witnessed
things that can't be explained by normal science. There you are surrounded
by life in a way that is unique. Everything around you is alive and connected
to everything else so it reinforces the idea that the earth is one entity
of which we are all just a small part.

Another aspect to spirituality that has recently come to me is the whole
idea of ancestor worship. In the West we have the idea that this is a
"primitive" form of religion, but having experienced a few different
ceremonies in various forms it strikes me as being quite sound. If we
look back far enough in our ancestors, eventually we see how we are all
related, further back still and we are related to other animals, further
back again and we are related to all life. So as a metaphor for "God"
who is meant to be all encompassing it seems quite a good analogy to me.
Everyone has ancestors so everyone has a direct line to God. Respect for
your ancestors leads to respect for life and all other beings. As soon
as a monotheistic religion emerges with a priest class, then your direct
line of communication with God is broken and other people start telling
you what is and isn't correct.

How did you go about choosing band members for the group? And
what key personnel shifts have there been over the years and why?

M.C: "To create the positive spirit that the Baka's music demands
it has to be more than just a professional relationship between musicians.
This is why its taken so long to realize the vision that really started
before the existence of Outback in 1988. It has taken this long to meet
the people I am currently working with and for them to have sufficient
faith and trust in me to be happy working with me. It’s a two way
thing."

Outside of the musical, what perspectives on cross-cultural
collaboration and cooperation does Baka Beyond represent?

M.C: "It shows that it is possible to work with people of many different
backgrounds. England has always, for thousands of years, been a country
of immigrants and that is what gives it its diversity. I wish more people
would emphasize the positive results of immigration which so outnumber
the negative results.

I understand that the seeds of Baka Beyond were planted a couple of years
prior to Outback wrapping up when you went to visit the Baka Forest People.
Tell me about what spurred you to visit them.

We first saw them on a Channel 4 documentary by Phil Agland. The way
music was so incorporated into everyday life and the way it was approached
with such fun and irreverence struck a chord with me. At first it was
a dream to go and visit them, but a series of coincidences fell into place
so that in December 1990 we set off to Cameroon, spending New Year’s
Eve in Moscow airport to witness the end of the USSR and arrived in Cameroon
in 1991."

Describe your lifestyle when spending time with them.

M.C: "In one word: hungry! Seriously though, we
lived in a tent amongst their leaf-covered mongolu huts. Food was mainly
gathered and hunted from the forest, supplemented with plantains that
came from villager's plantations where the Baka sometimes worked. To live
in a state of comfortable, but perpetual hunger, the Baka would work hard
on average about three days a week, leaving plenty of time for socializing
and playing music. hunting was with spears, often using dogs to flush
out or find the quarry and various forms of fishing. We took several fishhooks
and this became a popular pastime particularly for the children."

What were some of the things that fascinated you most about the
Baka?

M.C: "They were almost telepathic with each other. When entering
a new camp and greeting them they would all answer as one. They were also
the most hospitable people you could hope to meet. They were non-judgmental
and accepting of your strange ways."

Describe their approach to music and what makes it unique.

M.C: "Their music is at once simple and incredibly complex. It is
a backdrop to their whole life. It is very common to hear someone playing
an instrument or singing on their own. The other everyday sounds and conversations
fall into the rhythm of that music until the whole camp is singing and
playing along. It isn't possible to see when the conversations stop and
the music starts.

For the Baka, music is used both for spiritual things and general enjoyment.
The same songs can be used for both aspects depending on the circumstances.
Much of their music, particularly the polyphonic singing, is composed
of many relatively simple parts that create a much more complex whole.
The individual parts on their own are meaningless. As a result, the music
is used to hold the group together and to heal differences. We witnessed
several occasions when there had been a big argument, but the people later
played music together and completely healed any rifts through the togetherness
achieved in their music-making.

The Baka and other Pygmy groups are respected throughout Africa for their
music. This starts from the moment they take part in any social interaction
even as babies. From the moment they enter the forest world, every sound
they hear is of importance to their life. In the forest you can't see
far, so sound is how you know what is coming, where you are, where your
food is and where danger is. As a result, all the Baka learn to listen.
In our world, there are many sounds that are irrelevant to our lives,
especially in an industrialized country. We therefore learn from an early
age to filter out irrelevant sounds. In other words, we learn to not hear.
I believe this is why the Baka are such phenomenal musicians. Ninety percent
of music is the ability to listen sensitively. For the Baka, that ability
is their survival."

Tell me about some of the Baka's key musical instruments and
their approach to playing them.

M.C: "My favorite instrument is the ngombi na péké
which is a type of harp. It is played in a rhythmic, hypnotic way as an
accompaniment to singing, or sometimes on its own. It is similar to the
mvet which is played further north in Cameroon, however the sound is much
more mellow. Many African instruments of this type have buzzers and dampers
on the strings which give them a percussive quality that often isn't so
pleasing to Western ears—the mvet is like this. The ngombi, however
has a very mellow tone which mixes with the ever-present song of the insects.

All the instruments the Baka play they make themselves. They tend to
all be played in a cyclical, repetitive rhythmic pattern. When they play
guitar, these same patterns are mimicked. This has become the basic background
idea to most Baka Beyond guitar lines."

M.C: Contrast the Baka approach to life, family and music to
that of Britain.

"The Baka are hunter-gatherers. They live for the moment and have
very little concept of saving things for tomorrow. If they have food they
will eat it. if they have more than they need at that moment they will
share it. If they are hungry and others around them have food they will
ask for a share of it and will not be refused. Only when they are hungry
and they haven't had meat for a day or two will they bother to hunt for
more. Hunger is the natural human condition. There is virtually no sugar
and no fat in the diet. You don't miss this, but when you taste some you
immediately want more.

In Britain, we have an abundance of everything we need. Foods full of
fat and sugar are everywhere and people do not have the same need to share
things. On another level, life with the Baka was far more familiar than,
for example life in Northwest Cameroon where there are many little kingdoms
each with their own unique and unfamiliar rituals. It seemed to me that
the way the Baka live is probably how humans had evolved to live in the
first place and therefore was understandable, if unfamiliar.

In fact much of it wasn't so unfamiliar. Camping out in the woods has
always been something I've enjoyed doing from my childhood. Sitting around
a campfire, sharing a smoke and playing music together has been a favorite
pastime since being a teenager. It was this that probably attracted me
to them in the first place. Here were a people to whom this way of life
was totally normal, not just something you do on holiday. The main difference
was that you had to find your own food by gathering it from the forest
or hunting it with spears. This is probably more familiar to many people
in America than it is in U.K. where meat comes wrapped in plastic in a
supermarket, not from a living creature.

Family relations are the same the world over, with ups and down. There
is a great deal of respect for each other, and women are on a very equal
footing to men. Everyone finds their place and respects each other's strengths
and weaknesses. Pygmy men have been shown by anthropologists to spend
more time on childcare than any other group of men studied.

As for music, the Baka do not use music in a performance sense. It is
something that everyone present participates in. It is used for many purposes
such as ritual, healing, bringing the group together after an argument
and for fun. They have a strong belief in forest spirits and their music
and dance are closely associated with this. I have seen friends who I
got to know well performing ritual dances and they become unrecognizable
as the spirit takes them. At the same time, in the middle of the dance,
the intensity may die down and people will laugh and joke irreverently
until suddenly the rhythms and dance is going full tilt again. Somehow,
this irreverence gives the proceedings more power, not less. It is as
if they are responding to something genuine, not just a series of rules
and dogma. It is difficult to talk about since the language of such things
is so easy to misinterpret or misunderstand. Everyone has their own idea
of what is meant by such words as "spirit" which maybe aren't
the same as another persons.

That's why people argue so much about religion. When the Christian missionaries
first came across the Baka and told them about God and Jesus, the Baka
assumed they were talking about their god, Kumba but just called him a
different name. Out of respect whenever they were talking to missionaries
they used the Christian names, but when on their own they reverted to
their own. This respect for other people's beliefs could teach us a lot."

How have their philosophies affected your life?

M.C:" I am no longer a vegetarian yet feel I have more respect for
the animals I eat than before. As far as music goes, I have learned how
important it is to listen. I have also learned that music is a form of
magic. Again, language here can be confusing, but "magic" is
the best word I can find in our language. As a musician you have the power
to change people's emotions through the sounds you make. In effect, the
music you make casts a spell over the people it reaches, so it is important
to me to make that a positive experience. The nature of the Baka's music
is to spread joy and this is something that we always aim to do at a live
concert."

Describe your current relationship to the Baka.

M.C: "There are a few individuals who we got very close to and who
we consider as friends, although communication from afar is very difficult.
We have visited three times, the last time with our son who was nearly
three and I am going back at the end of November this year to visit them
and further the work of the charity "One Heart" that is setting
up positive ways to use the money they have earned. I am sure that they
look at us to a certain extent as "patrons." They have always
linked themselves to other people for their own benefit although this
has led to problems as well. For example the villagers believe that they
"own" them.

Living with them as they do, hunting, gathering, fishing and playing
music with them has broken down a lot of barriers and has enabled us to
gain a level of trust that would be hard for one of the local Bantu villagers.
The journey to visit in November and December is to deliver some basic
supplies that they have asked for and to continue discussions with them
as to what their real needs are. We will be going with an anthropologist
who lived for three years with another Pygmy group in Congo which isn’t
far away who has a very good understanding of their ways and speaks their
language which will make it much easier for them to speak freely."

Can you elaborate on what you meant when you said "…the
villagers believe that they ‘own’ them?"

M.C: "The Baka have, as far as we can tell, always lived alongside
farming communities. There is a complex relationship whereby the Baka
are vitally important for religious ceremonies and initiations for the
Bantu, and the Bantu are important for the Baka because they provide easy
food from their farms and a source of metal tools and other things not
available in the forest.

Each Baka family is associated with a Bantu family. However, the Bantu
really consider that the Baka are their property. They will work on their
farms in exchange for food and are given very little respect. It isn't
as simple as a slave-owner relationship. It is probably less work for
a Baka to work for a few hours in a plantation and to come home with a
load of plantains than it is to go into the forest and find, for example,
wild yams.

It is therefore in their interest to work on the plantations. Also, if
they are badly treated they will just get up and go off into the forest
where the Bantu don't dare follow. the difficulties emerge when the forest
is degraded or cut down so that the Baka have no escape. Then the Bantu's
concept of "owning their Pygmies" becomes more alarming. As
long as the forest is there and the Bantu farmers still believe in their
traditional spirits, the Baka are OK. Without the forest the Baka have
nothing—except possibly their music."

How did the Baka first respond to your idea of recording them
for the Spirit of the Forest and Heart of the Forest albums?

M.C:
"When we first went to visit, the idea of an album didn't exist.
But I did have the idea of recording a version of "Baka" with
them and they were very happy to assist. I thought we could release it
as a single "Outback with the Baka" to raise money and awareness
for them. I felt the only thing you can really export without ecological
ramifications is culture. In the end this didn't happen, but Spirit of
the Forest and Heart of the Forest did, so we were able to set up a charity
to handle the money earned and to make sure they got their fair due from
the sales."

Describe your charitable organization in more detail. What motivated
you to create it, how is it administered and what are its larger goals
for the Baka?

"Initially, all money earned by the Baka such as publishing for
all songs on Heart of the Forest and some songs on Spirit of the Forest—plus
their share of sales royalties for all songs where recordings or samples
of their music is used—was put into a building society until the
best thing to do with it was decided.

The Baka live in a cash-free economy. When any of them do have money
it is usually spent on alcohol as this can be shared out easily and the
villagers can get the money off them. It is quite a sensitive issue really
as the money is theirs, but the social implications of suddenly giving
them large amounts of cash are quite severe.

Since the first visit, we have returned three times and have built up
a picture of their wishes and needs.

Over the last few years, we have been building up contacts with people
both local to the Baka and development experts to make sure that the money
is spent in the best way possible, and in the way the Baka wish. The second-to-last
time we were there, the Cameroonian authorities found out about our charity
and tried to get hold of the money to administer it themselves. Their
proposal included spending most of the money on highly dubious consultancy
fees. As yet, we have not received a reply to our letter of several months
ago questioning certain details.

During our last trip, I returned with Jerome Lewis [an anthropologist
who lived with the Bambenjelli Pygmies in Congo for three years as well
as visiting Pygmy people in Rwanda, Zaire and Central Africa Republic]
to hold detailed talks with the Baka group concerned to start more concrete
development projects. We also delivered tools and clothing that the Baka
have specifically asked us for in order to create a palm oil plantation.

It should be pointed out that although the Baka we stayed with are living
from hunter-gathering in the forest. There are changes happening there
with encroachment on their land, expansion of towns etcetera, so that
their life is changing. We are aiming to help them cope with this change
and to preserve as much of the forest as possible. It would be terrible
to see the same thing happen to them as hashappened to the Pygmies of
the Great Lakes region where they have become the lowest of the low city
beggars."

How have the Baka Forest Peoples reacted to Baka Beyond's output?

M.C: "When we returned the second time with copies of Heart of the
Forest and Spirit of the Forest, the Baka were much more interested in
Spirit than Heart. This disappointed me a bit because I wanted them to
realize the power and value of their traditional music. Also, they didn't
recognize it as their music, but really liked it. The third time we returned,
we noticed how many more of them—the younger men particularly—could
play the guitar. They were very keen to create a clearing in the forest
solely for playing music. What pleased me was that this interest in developing
their guitar-based music didn't seem to have affected their enjoyment
of the traditional stuff that they continued to play as well."

How does Baka Beyond's music translate into a live context?

M.C: "If you want to hear what Baka Beyond is like live then we
have some recordings from this summer available from our website. However,
the atmosphere of a live concert is never captured on a recording. There
is no substitute to going to a concert.

From our point of view, it is always more enjoyable in situations where
the audience is allowed to dance. This helps the Baka-type vibe and breaks
down barriers between performer and audience so that we can all have a
great time together. The Baka have a word—"bé"—which
means both "song" and "dance." They can't imagine
one without the other. There are many occasions where we have played at
a venue where we have been told "no one ever dances here" only
to find that after the first number half the audience is out of their
seats and up dancing.

I realize that there are places and people that don't want to dance,
but want to watch what's going down and enjoy it in a different way. Because
we have some top performers in the band, there is plenty to watch. The
music is groove-based but there is room within that for a fair amount
of improvisation and people particularly enjoy watching Paddy on the violin
and Nii on percussion—both of whom are virtuosos."

How have you evolved as a performer and guitarist since Outback?

M.C: Well, I play in more than one key now! It has been nearly eight
years and whereas with Outback I almost exclusively used a pick, I mainly
fingerpick in Baka Beyond. It is difficult for me to say how I've evolved
as I have been living it. I suppose I see myself as more a producer and
arranger than a guitarist. As a performer, I probably express myself more
freely on the mandolin than on the guitar, particularly in a live context.
Unfortunately, I don't play mandolin live with Baka Beyond, although that
could soon change with Seckou Keita playing with us who is a fantastic
Kora player as well as a great drummer. The kora and mandolin seem to
compliment each other very well."

Describe your current approach to the guitar.

M.C: The guitar is a unique rhythm instrument. I am definitely more of
a rhythm than lead guitarist. I enjoy playing kind of rhythmic lead parts.
It is chance really that I am known as an acoustic guitarist. I had always
played electric guitar until about a year before Outback started when
I started busking solo acoustic guitar using delays to build up the sound.
It was the mix of these tunes I had been busking and Graham's didgeridoo
that created the original Outback sound. I see the guitar as the link
between the drums and percussion and the melodies in the music."

Are you self-taught or did you take lessons?

M.C: "I learned classical guitar between the ages of 14 and 17 at
school. I gave up once I had to learn strange arrhythmic, atonal pieces
for grade seven that I didn't like as pieces of music and couldn't memorize.
From there, I played with a series of ensembles playing entirely improvised
music on the electric guitar. When I was about 20, I started playing in
bands that played songs, but with a considerable amount of improvisation.
This was the beginning of the ‘80s so everyone thought we were completely
crazy since it was groove-based acid music that we were playing and it
was another 10 years before that became acceptable. So, to answer your
question, I guess I am basically self-taught with a classical foundation."

Apart from Baka Beyond, you run March Hare Music, an independent
label devoted to your side projects and those of your friends. Describe
the freedom inherent in taking this approach and how it's benefited your
creative mindset.

M.C: "March Hare Music started when in 1984 when I ran the Mad Hatter's
Club above a pub in Oxford with a friend and we made a compilation album
of four bands and we were trying to create the appearance of a thriving
music scene at a time when things were very London-oriented. It took several
years for Oxford to get noticed as a center for music when bands such
as Ride became successful. By then the Mad Hatter's Club had been forgotten
but I like to believe that we laid some of the groundwork.

Since then, we have released several recordings on the label, but with
the absence of a marketing department, it has been a very low key affair.
I know many musicians who have some great recordings that will never be
heard by anyone else since they sit on a shelf and stay there because
they aren't commercial enough to interest A&R men. The Internet could
change this as it is possible to have a very specialized market spread
across the world, whereas previously you needed a certain concentration
of interest to make it viable to produce records to sell.

Our online shop aims to try and get these recordings at least available
to anyone who's interested, although at this stage it's quite a passive
process. Selling things has never been my strong point, but I believe
Internet trade can only increase as more people get online and more people
hear about us. It should be said that Hannibal Records, who market all
the Outback and Baka Beyond titles, have always given me total artistic
freedom. On the few occasions when we have been asked to change something
that we had done there were very good reasons and I agreed with the changes."

Describe some of your recent solo projects via March Hare.

M.C: We have our own studio here in Bath. This gives us the luxury of
being able to record whatever we want when we want. The time and energy
used up in touring and sharing childcare means that I haven't produced
as much music as I would have liked to, but we are working on a couple
of projects at the moment apart from new Baka Beyond material. One of
the more interesting collaborations I am involved in is with Danny, the
inventor of the Rinky Dink bicycle-powered sound system. This is an incredible
machine—a sort of cross between a rickshaw, a tandem, a train and
a fantasy machine. The speakers are loaded with ATC top quality drivers,
but are shaped like flowers. It can travel along the road and generates
electricity by means of a tandem connected to a flywheel and generator.
It creates a really positive atmosphere and really makes any festival.
Virtually every performance is recorded and so some of these recordings
are available on our web shop. As far as studio projects go, I particularly
like the recordings I made with Seckou Sousso, a kora player from Gambia.
These were all recorded and mixed in a day, but somehow capture a spirit.

I’m currently working on two different recording projects, one
with Seckou Keita who has been playing the drum kit this summer with Baka
Beyond, and one with Nii Tagoe, the percussionist. Seckou is recording
some of his songs with the kora, and Nii has another band called Frititi.
Some tracks will be able to be heard on RealAudio from our website."

Tell me more about the Rinky Dink sound system.

M.C: "Rinky Dink is Dan Smythies’ invention. It is entirely
made of scrap and so it directly demonstrates the possibilities of recycling
and of clean energy. I suspect the original idea came from watching Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang! Because it relies on people peddling to create electricity
for performances, it means that the music played has to inspire people
to pedal. It’s a brilliant machine."

What's your stance on the controversies surrounding downloadable
music a la Napster and MP3.com?

M.C: "The technology is there, so it is going to happen whatever
laws are passed. Of course it is nice to be paid every time someone copies
your music, but who hasn't made a tape of their favorite music for a friend?
If I had £1 for every Outback cassette in existence I would be a
rich man. The fact that so many copies were made in those early Outback
days has certainly helped my career more than if people hadn't made them
because they would have been charged."

If the music is in demand, let people hear it. It only becomes galling
if someone is making money out of copying your music and you don't get
a share. The more it is freely copied, the more people will know it and
therefore the more valuable the live act becomes since that can't be reproduced
across the Internet! There is also evidence that people who download MP3s
actually start buying more CDs as a result, because at the end of the
day people like to own the hard copy and be able to read the CD booklet.
If I knew how to sell individual tracks off our website as MP3s I would
do so. We're just in the process of putting some live tracks as MP3s on
the site."

What's your take on the business of world music today? Many suggest
it's fallen prey to the same forces that have homogenized the pop and
mainstream jazz worlds.

M.C: "The music industry is more about fashion than music—at
least the commercial, multinational end of the market, 99 percent of it.
Any musical form that has any success is copied and watered down as less
innovative people jump on bandwagons. The source music is still there
though and is unaltered. I'm quite sure that more people hear the original
stuff than did before the homogenized stuff was being sold, so I don't
see that as a problem. The problem is the way it is marketed and the stranglehold
that big companies have on media and retail outlets. You are very lucky
in the States to have college radio which broadcasts such a wide range
of music played by enthusiasts. In Britain, shows that play music like
that can be counted on one hand and it is the homogenization of radio
that is the bigger problem."

What challenges do you face in keeping a band of Baka Beyond's
caliber together in the U.K.?

M.C:
"The band is the strongest it has ever been in terms of its live
show and performance. This is due to the fact that all the musicians are
top class. The downside of that is that they are also in demand and in
order to keep them enthusiastic we need good work to do. It is a struggle
to get work that pays enough to keep an eight-piece band on the road and
it is impossible to deny musicians the chance to do other work. We all
need to eat and in some cases support families. The fact that the musicians
are geographically separate adds other problems. The U.K. must be the
worst place to be a musician from the point of view as to how you are
treated. There are so many bands in every town that even when you are
playing at a reasonable level there is still the attitude at many venues
that you are being done a favor by being allowed to play. In mainland
Europe it couldn't be more different. As an English musician I am used
to this, but I do find myself having to placate the African musicians
sometimes who aren't used to being treated so badly!"

What is your reaction to the usual arguments that say amalgams
like Baka Beyond water down the constituent elements it's made from to
create something accessible for the masses?

M.C: "I don't see Baka Beyond in these terms. We are individual
musicians playing together and the result is the music we make. What are
the constituent elements? A solo guitar, a drumbeat? Music is always more
than the sum of the individual parts—you either like it or you don't.
If you have to analyze how it is made to decide whether or not you like
it, then you are missing the point.

When we first released Spirit of the Forest we realized that some people
would prefer to hear the source music so we insisted on Hannibal releasing
Heart of the Forest at the same time. Some people may prefer one, some
the other, but it’s just music. Without music taking bits from here
and there and mixing other things up it would never evolve and none of
the music that people listen to today would exist."

What advice do you have for musicians attempting to create barrier-free
music like Baka Beyond? And how should they equip their mental faculties
to deal with the business side?

M.C: "Make the music that in your heart you want to, but if you
want to make a living from it find that part of it that is also relevant
to other people. The business side is all about getting people to hear
your music, so be creative. There is more than one way to do this. When
Outback started, we were selling cassettes while busking and making a
reasonable living doing so. If we had accepted a normal record deal when
Joe Boyd first saw us we would have lost our means of making a living.
We therefore managed to negotiate a deal that suited both parties where
we didn't get an advance as such, but were able to get cassettes and CDs
at cost price providing that we sold them direct and not to retail outlets.
I wouldn't be able to survive busking with Baka Beyond because I have
to buy the stock at a retailer’s price and the profit margin as
a result is not great enough. Ultimately, to carry on takes hard work,
dogged determination and a sense of humor."

Describe the circumstances that led to the break-up of Outback.

M.C: "We hadn't written any new material together for three years
and it was no longer fun. My wife had a miscarriage when she was six months
pregnant and this made me aware of the fragility of life, and that it
was important to do the things you want to do in life and to enjoy it.
The only reason to stay together seemed to be that it was financially
sensible to do so. Money has never been my incentive for playing music
so I left."

What were some of the key positive and negative elements involved
in that arrangement?

M.C: "The positive things were that both Graham and I were free
to do the music we wanted to without having to justify it to each other.
On the negative side, it took a while to be in the position to be playing
gigs with the same atmosphere as Outback, which I missed. Also, because
it was I who decided to leave, I got a lot of negative stuff from people
who really had nothing to do with it and didn't know the whole situation
but who couldn't understand how I could walk away from something that
was on the edge of becoming much bigger. I have absolutely no regrets
and would make the same decision again."

What do the differences in approach between Baka Beyond and Dr.
Didg say about the personalities and leanings involved in Outback?

M.C: "I think the music speaks for itself. I find it interesting
that in musical relationships where there is a certain amount of tension
there is an energy created that can lead to very good music. There are
so many partnerships that are examples of this. I occasionally listen
to Outback and appreciate the dynamics created between Graham and myself.
In previous live incarnations of Baka Beyond, I think this energy has
been lacking, but now it is definitely there, but in a very positive way
and as a result is much more powerful than Outback ever was."

Baka Beyond has quietly been part of the electronica movement
in that its work has been sampled by several significant acts.

M.C: "To be honest, I don't know all the people who may have sampled
it. Coldcut have and they make a payment for its use, as do Delirium.
Whether it’s fairly compensated or not is debatable. I think people
could make more effort to acknowledge the samples they have used and to
provide some small payment. No one expects a fortune from someone who
might only sell a few hundred copies of their record, but their contributions
should be recognized. On recordings where we have used samples, for example
of the Baka playing percussion, we have treated it as if they had come
to the studio and played that part and are given a share of sales royalties
as a result. In the end all you can do is "do-as-you-would-be-done-by"
to quote the Waterbabies."